The NSA Is Watching Your Computer (But Not with Cookies)
The NSA is spying on your computer - but not by putting cookies on your computer when you visit the NSA web site. Jeez, how many people ever visit www.nsa.gov? Maybe three? And their home page is so spooky it makes you want to close your browser, throw your computer away, and flee to the safety of Antarctica.
The NSA doesn't deal with small numbers. They devour every bit of electronic information in the whole damn world.
I'm not disclosing any secrets here. I have no inside knowledge - I only know what I read in the newspapers. Anyone who pays attention to privacy issues knows this stuff. (Try the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, or the ACLU.) And guess what - the terrorists (and drug dealers) do too. That's why they don't use computers or cell phones unless they absolutely have to, and then they use "disposable" ones. Instead, they use non-electronic communications - good old-fashioned human messengers. Just think about how Al Qaeda tapes are secretly hand-delivered to Al Jazeera - it's not via e-mail.
Here's how the NSA monitors all of us:
1. Echelon: This is the massive NSA program that captures every message that moves electronically, including phone, e-mail and IM.
ECHELON is a highly secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network run by the UKUSA Community. [1] ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes and e-mails nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts. [2] ECHELON is estimated to intercept up to 3 billion communications every day.
There has been a public battle in the past year over Internet phone calls, with the NSA demanding access to such systems. All of the US-based systems like Vonage are cooperating with the NSA; only the European-based Skype has resisted.
2. MAC Address: Even if you're not sending or receiving a message via email, IM, or VOIP, the NSA can track your online behavior, including browsing and Googling. Every network interface (such as dialup modems, broadband modems, wireless modems) is shipped by the manufacturer with a unique number called a MAC Address. (Here's how to find your MAC address.) I have no doubt that the NSA has a master database of every MAC Address in the world, and can tell you whose computer it is on. So whenever you're connected to the Internet, the NSA can monitor all of your activities.
The NSA is Big Brother. If you don't like it, you have three choices:
- Throw away all of your electronic devices and move to Antarctica, or
- Elect a Democratic President and Congress that will force the NSA to obey the law - not Republicans who insist on breaking it
- Work for passage of a Privacy Amendment to the Constitution
- Bob Fertik's blog
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"Big Brother" Today is Nothing But Nazi "Legal Expert"
The theory that if the President orders illegal activities due to the "emergency" situation is straight out of the books of Carl Schmitt, the Nazi Party "Crown Jurist" who came up with the idea that whatever Hitler said was the law- was the law- due to the "emergency" of the Reichstag Fire (which the Nazis themselves had set up the fire).
If one were to simply compare the justifications for this illegal spying which Cheney and Bush have ALREADY ADMITTED to and counterpose it to Carl Schmitt's "legalisms" we have here what I call a "slam-dunk" case for impeachment. Have a Happier New Year without Cheney and Bush. Maybe the fundamentalists were right, it is the end-times........ for Cheney and Bush!! Have Fun! Gerald Pechenuk cities12345@yahoo.com
Was 9-11
Bush crossing the Danube? Using history as a model it is very possible. Great post cities!!!!
Captain Midnight for Adults!
A very important post Bob!
Julius Caesar did not trust his messengers so he made his instructions unreadable by shifting characters in his alphabet by three. In other words he used a 'key' of three (3). If you knew the 'key' you could unscramble the instruction.
Governments in today's world think they have a right to anyone's privacy. Privacy is our right, which is why we put our letters in envelopes so they are read only by the person intended or by others with that person's permission. If we all wrote on post-cards then a person using an envelope would draw suspicion.
If privacy is outlawed then only the outlaws will have privacy.
Therefore we all should learn and use PGP. We can make it the 'normal' thing to do, just like using an envelope. A tutorial called 'Captain Midnight for Adults - Let's get private' will be available in the new year (January 12th) at http://www.coia.org.uk/pgp.swf. It will explain to techno dummies how to send and receive 'private' mail.
We must be empowered to take privacy into our own hands. All satellite mobile communications are now continuously monitored. All Internet traffic is routed via monitoring points. Forged PGP programs have been produced equipped with Trojan horses and Public keys are constantly being forged. It is therefore essential to develop a network of trust. This network of trust is the key to our future in a desperate world. It is within groups like this one where we find a way to identify and purge the 'outlaws' so we can reach out to others and keep privacy our right.
http://www.coia.org.uk/kingGeorge.jpg
NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information
NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance
Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases
Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.
The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.
At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.
Since the revelation last month that President Bush had authorized the NSA to intercept communications inside the United States, public concern has focused primarily on the legality of the NSA eavesdropping. Less attention has been paid to, and little is known about, how the NSA's information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens or to cross-check with other databases. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists, revelations of which prompted Congress to restrict the NSA from intercepting communications of Americans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/31/AR200512...
Plame connection?
Is this how the White House learned of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, the NSA? I bet you the NSA was monitoring Joe Wilson big time and that is probably why the BA was out disclosing his wife identity at about the same time Wilson was out trying to get the media to pay attention about his findings.
And what is up with the CIA?
Book: CIA Ignored Info Iraq Had No WMD
Guess I see why Bush is so angry at Iran.
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security
like it's some kind of federal program."
- George W. Bush in a debate in St. Charles, Mo., Nov. 2, 2000